


sometimes a thing can seem star-like (when it's just a star)

by minarchy



Series: the great gdocs clear out of 2016 [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Bronze Age, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 01:53:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6175732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Your friend has gone south,” Piotr said to Charles, one day. The tree where the jaybird sat was empty, leaves lost under the snow.</p>
<p>“He was only visiting,” Charles said. “His lady is in the forest.”</p>
<p>At night, the wind whistled around workshop, and Erik wondered if Charles missed the conversation the bird gave him.</p>
<p>“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charles said, and then, “sorry. It’s very quiet here.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sometimes a thing can seem star-like (when it's just a star)

**Author's Note:**

> originally written august 2012 but never finished.
> 
> **→** the bronze age is generally considered to span between 3200-600BC in Europe, which is massively pre-Roman and thus beyond the areas of my detailed historical knowledge, so all the stuff about culture and society is stolen from later in history.  
>  **→** _ceorl_ is the Middle Low German word for 'free man' (and is also the word referring to the lowest of in the heirarchial structure, and is thus where the English word 'churl' originated) – pronounced tch–air–l; the more historically correct term would be _karlaz_ , which is the Proto-Germanic word for the same thing.  
>  **→** _Schmied_ is the modern German word for (black)smith; _Schniede_ is the modern German word for sharp edge (where we get the English term 'snide'). _Lügner_ is liar; _Kesselflicker_ is tinker.  
>  **→** here, Charles is a Celt, seeing as the Anglo-Saxon settlement didn't happen until the Late Antiquity-Early Middle Ages (around C5AD)
> 
> unbeta'd, as ever, because i am trash

     _What if it is rest and nothing else that_  
  
_we want? Is it a findable thing, small?_  
_In what hole is it hidden? Is it, maybe,_  
_a country? Will a guide be required who_  
_will say to us how? Do we fly? Do we_  
_swim? What will I do now, with my hands?_  
  
_**— Carl Phillips, As from a Quiver of Arrows**_

 

"Kurt Marko is dead."

Erik looked up and sideways, squinting against the glow from the forge that offset his night vision. Piotr was standing in the doorway, his broad shoulders filling the narrow space. 

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked. Piotr shrugged, slowly.

"They need people to buy his things." 

Erik blinked at him, once, and turned back his work.

"I have no use for anything of his."

 

The travail made a heavy, dense sound against the compact earth of Erik's floor when dropped. Piotr straightened his back, pushing his shoulders back to loosen the taut muscles.

"How's the sale going?" Erik asked, perfunctorily.

Piotr didn't speak for a minute, watching Erik pump the bellows so smoke spat up into the cold, blue sky. It was always hot in the forge; hot coals and glowing metal and Piotr was the only company that Erik had, except when someone wanted something specific and urgent from him. It was lucky that the boy didn't feel the cold, because he would have melted like the tin over the fire.

"Well," he said, eventually. "They lost the slave, though."

"Winter," Erik said. They always lost people to winter.

Piotr breathed in deeply, expanding his barrel chest with the clean air waved through on the cross-breeze. "He ran," he corrected.

The silence opened between them like the ocean.

"They'll catch him," Erik said. 

Piotr hummed, rocking back on his heels before striding back towards the village. Erik heaved down on the bellows; the coals flared white.

 

" _Schmied_."

Erik didn't turn around, concentrating on beating the copper into the correct circumference. "Warren," he said.

"We've found the slave."

"Congratulations." He pressed his thumbs against the copper, forcing the metal to curve around them, leaving neat indentations in the bowl that would be attributed as hammer marks.

Warren exhaled through his nose, the sound annoyed over the crackle of the fire and the click of cooling metal.

"They're going to hang him if no one buys him," Warren said, voice stern. "Stryker says he has a demon in him."

"Stryker is a fool," Erik said, calmly. The fire spat in agreement. 

He could _feel_ Warren's frown.

"Why don't you buy him?" he said. "I do not keep slaves."

"I already have Piotr," Warren said. "It would not be seeming to have another." Erik knew that wasn't the reason. Warren had no problem with displaying his status, even if he didn't go out of his way to do so. The fine weave of his cloth was evidence enough for that. Stryker had labelled the slave a _Hexer_ ; whoever bought him would be shunned from the village. Warren couldn't afford that. 

" _Lügner_ ," he said, putting down the bowl.

 

The crowd was gathered on the hill outside the village. Piotr was already there, standing as a passive but imposing presence on the edge of the crowd. Erik suspected Warren had told him to keep the execution from happening until he returned.

"Stryker wants to nail him to the Old Tree," Warren said, keeping step with Erik as they mounted the hill.

Piotr moved to allow them to see; the slave was kneeling in front of the Tree, his hands bound in front of him. His cloth was poor and filthy, and someone had painted sigils on his face in red clay – Kelly, Erik thought. The colour was stark against his white-grey skin.

Stryker was ranting, trying to convince the rest of the village to agree to an execution. "A _plague_ , within our midst!" he cried. "And now, without a master, who is to say when the demon will not walk again? Stride through the dreams of our children, steal their very souls?"

Erik examined the man. He shared few of the physical characteristics of the local population, and he was clearly starved and exhausted; but his eyes, when he caught Erik's gaze, were bright and intelligent, and Erik thought there might be hope for him yet. He could have sworn the man's mouth twitched upwards in one corner.

"If no one will take him on – and no one blames you for this, my brothers, my sisters – if no one will purchase him, then we must _purge_ this unclean spirit from our midst!"

Warren glanced sideways at Erik, and raised one eyebrow minutely. Erik sighed inwardly.

"I'll take him," he said, flicking a silver piece at Cain, who dug his teeth into the metal before frowning at Erik. "More than he's worth," Erik said, shooting the boy a glare.

" _You're_ buying him?" Stryker said, amused astonishment rich in his tone.

"You wanted a master for him," Erik said. "I paid for him. Cut him loose."

 

"I don't keep slaves," Erik said, when they had left the village and Warren and Piotr, and made the walk back to Erik's workshop. "Do you have a name?"

"I am a chattel," the slave said. His voice was crisp at the edges, but more lyrical than Erik was used to. Definitely not from local stock.

Erik considered this in silence, stoking the tamped fire back to temperature. The man stood quietly behind him.

"I don't keep slaves," Erik repeated, after some thought. "Where I come from, we call free men _ceorls_."

" _Ceorls_ ," the man repeated, although his accent flattened and lengthened the vowel. Erik glanced across at him, and the man smiled.

"Your title, now," Erik said. "And your status. You can return to your home."

"But I am a _wealh_ ," the man said.

"I do not keep slaves, " Erik repeated.

"You bought me," the man countered.

"Go home," Erik said.

 

The man was still there in the morning.

"I told you," Erik began.

"I don't have a home," the man said. "Can I not stay without being your slave?"

Erik frowned, pursing his lips and dragging down the corners of his mouth. "I don't make very good company," he said.

"I've been in worse."

Erik didn't doubt that. The man seemed to take his silence for an acquiescence, because he smiled again, and Erik found a bowl of porridge placed before him.

"Breakfast," the man said, seating himself opposite Erik with a moment's hesitation. They ate in silence.

 

"Have you thought of a name, yet?" Erik said, as the man stitched up the holes in the tent walls.

"Charles," the man said. 

" _Ceorls_ ," Erik said, both a correction and a question.

"Charles," the man repeated, the vowel just as long and flat.

"Charles," Erik said, trying out the foreign sound on his tongue. It rolled fluidly around his mouth. He caught the man – Charles – smiling out of the corner of his eye.

 

"Why do they call you a dream walker?" Erik asked, as they ate at the end of the third day. Charles shrugged.

"Because I am," he said. Erik blinked at him, and considered this.

"There's no such thing," he said.

Charles raised an eyebrow, and Erik heard him inside his head. _Really?_

The bronze cauldron smacked Charles across the head as Erik jerked backwards, away from the other man.

"You're a metallurg," Charles said, from the floor. "Ow."

"You were in my head," Erik said, watching him warily. "How?"

"I have a demon inside me," Charles said, wryly, rubbing the side of his head.

Erik didn't reply, studying Charles as the other man pushed himself upright; Charles met his gaze, eyes still full of the curious acumen that had convinced Erik to save him.

"Stryker's a fool," he said, at length. Charles glanced up from his meal.

"Isn't he, though?" he said.

_So am I_ , Erik thought, rubbing at him chin and the four-day-old growth there. Charles smirked into his porridge.

 

"Make yourself useful," Erik said, Piotr standing in the entrance with the bleak, pale sunlight drifting in around him. Charles glanced between the two men. "And stay out of my head," Erik added. 

Piotr fixed Charles with his calm, patient gaze. Charles dusted his knees off, and looked at Erik again.

"What am I to do?" he asked.

Erik looked up from his work, carefully engraving a spirit bowl with one finger. "Firewood," he said.

"Charcoal," Piotr added, lifting the travail with one huge hand.

"I can make charcoal," Charles said, stepping towards Piotr and the exit.

"Good," said Erik.

 

"Keeping me useful," Charles said, when he staggered back inside and collapsed into an ungainly heap in his corner. He stank of wood smoke and cold air and the empty, dark night. "And out of your head," he added, words slurring and muffled from his position. "Just don't dream too loud."

 

Piotr tied the wares carefully, surprisingly dexterous fingers winding sinew-thread neatly into the travail weave. The walls were spread open, the fabric pinned back to allow the day into the workshop, the air running cold rivulets over Erik's skin as he hammered out silver leaf. Piotr finished his last knot, and straightened. Erik's hammer rang out in booming thuds against his wooden bench.

"He talks a lot," Piotr said, looking at Charles. Erik paused, turning to watch as the smaller man tamped the charcoal clamp and whistled to the jaybird that had appeared to watch. 

"Evidently," Erik said. 

"Even to the birds," Piotr added.

"It might be a problem," Erik agreed.

"He'll soon learn," Piotr said. The jay cocked its head at Charles, and whistled back. They watched as Charles grinned at it, delighted, and repeated the phrase.

Erik could see Piotr's amusement out of the corner of his eye. "Good luck," the serf said, settling the travail against his shoulders and walking back towards the village.

 

"Why did they exclude you?" Charles asked. Erik had sliced open his back when a piece of the entrance frame snapped and stabbed down at him. The metal of the needle vibrated gently against Charles' fingertips as he stitched the skin closed. "They believe me to be a witch," he went on, "but they don't know about your affinity for metal. So why did you live here, instead of in a proper homestead in the village?"

Erik breathed out smoothly through his nose as Charles pulled the skin taut. "I do not enjoy company," he said.

"That's not it," Charles said, tone only slightly accusing. "It's more than you excluding yourself. They were –" Erik felt a pulse of _angerfeardisgust_ against the back of his mind, emotions that weren't his, and Charles' fingers stilled momentarily on his skin. "Sorry," he said.

The pegs loosed in their holdings and the flaps of the door covering lowered themselves closed as the wind picked up, carrying chill and damp towards them. The ties knotted themselves neatly, tugging through the loops by the slag-metal burnt onto their tips.

"They don't know about this," Charles said, again. "So why do they hate you?"

Erik spread his fingers on his knees. "I am a deviant," he said.

Charles' fingers pressed a little harder than necessary against him. "In what sense?" he asked. Erik twisted his head to raise an eyebrow at him; Charles looked unabashed. "I have seen many things one such as Stryker would consider deviant," he said.

His fingers flexed slightly on his knees, but Erik did not deny Charles his small history. "I – have no interest in women," he said, slowly.

The needle was flowing smoothly again, press-push-in push-pierce-out tug-tight-taut-repeat. "In fucking them," Charles said, expletive falling strange with his accent. "What would you rather? Horses? Children? Dogs?" A pause, and: "metal?"

Erik snorted. "Men," he said.

"Ah," said Charles, fingers twitching as if to splay his hands over Erik's shoulder blades, continuing their movements as if uninterrupted.

 

The weather didn't rage in. It had crept up slowly, whispering dry leaves and cracked tree branches from the south, dragging frozen mist and freezing air from the sea. Erik moved the water butt so that it was next to the forge, the only way to keep it from icing over. Steam rose from his flesh as he worked, pounding new bases into frost-damaged cauldrons.

Winter gave him regular work, delivered by Piotr from the village. Cold weakened and split metal. Ice hardened the ground until poles could not be driven in. This did not stop people from trying.

Charles did not bring up their conversation again. His silence on the matter implied only that the issue had been covered, rather than judgement, but Erik still found Charles watching him in quiet moments.

 

“Your friend has gone south,” Piotr said to Charles, one day. The tree where the jaybird sat was empty, leaves lost under the snow.

“He was only visiting,” Charles said. “His lady is in the forest.”

At night, the wind whistled around workshop, and Erik wondered if Charles missed the conversation the bird gave him.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Charles said, and then, “sorry. It’s very quiet here.”

 

Erik didn’t mind the cold. He had grown up on the flats, and the bitter winds sweeping in were well known. It settled in his joints now more than it had when he was a child. He gave Charles the animal skins from his traps to make a cloak.

“You are useless to me if you freeze,” he said. Charles beamed at him, unashamed in his gratitude.

 

His bellows had split at the handle join, leather weak in the crease with work and age. Without the forge to attend to, Erik was hauling firewood. It helped keep out the cold. His shirt was damp at the underarms and small of his back, where ice would settle if he stopped moving. 

Piotr was waiting in the workshop, watching as Charles mended the tear with small, neat stitches.

“It will need proper patching,” he said, without looking up when Erik entered. 

“I will bring leather,” Piotr said, “next time.” He followed Erik to the back of the hut to help him stack the firewood, which is how Erik knew that he wanted to speak with him.

“What,” he said, when the travail was half unloaded and Piotr still had spoken.

“He is good for you,” Piotr said, simply. Erik gave him a sharp look. Piotr shrugged one massive shoulder. “I do not care,” he said. “People will talk. They are already talking. But you are outside the village, and you do good work.”

The rest of the travail was unloaded in silence, Piotr splitting the large logs, Erik the small, then stacking them in the store. Repetitive work that Erik allowed himself to get lost in, for a time.

When they were done, and Piotr had lifted the travail onto its mount, Erik said, “that is not how it is.”

Piotr looked at him, slow and steady. “Perhaps it should be,” he said.

 

Erik was distracted. Even the forge, his great salvation, could not settle his mind. He had watched Charles reattach the bag with quick nimble fingers, skin turned golden in the light of the forge. Erik had pushed the pins back through the metal and wood, eyes on the small, neat stitches of the repair, thought of the small, neat stitches Charles had put in his back.

The feeling of distraction lasted for the rest of the afternoon, long after the wan sun had crept back below the horizon. Erik worked solidly for the entire time, beating out the edge of an axe.

When he emerged, Charles was watching him.

“Do you want me to take them out?” he asked. Erik looked at him. “The stitches,” he said, indicating to his own back. “They’ve been on your mind all afternoon.”

Erik pondered this, rolling his shoulder and feeling the pull of new skin there. “Alright,” he said.

 

Charles had him sharpen a small knife with a swipe of his thumb, and pressed a warm, wet cloth against the wound, wiping it clean. They didn’t talk whilst he worked. Erik was very aware of Charles’ hands on his skin.

When he was done:

“You were not thinking about the stitches,” Charles said. Erik carefully breathed out.

“No,” he said.

“Ah,” said Charles. He did not remove his hands from the planes of Erik’s back. “I owe you a great debt—,” he added, after moment.

“You owe me nothing,” Erik said, standing up abruptly, “you work for your keep.”

“You saved my life,” Charles said.

“You can leave whenever you want,” Erik said. “I don’t keep slaves.”

 

The cots had been moved onto either side of the forge for warmth when the weather had turned. The red glow of the embers through strange shadows around the hut.

“I would not be opposed,” Charles said, into the silence. Erik blinked out of half-sleep, and looked across at him. Charles’ eyes were very bright in the dim light.

“If you were to offer,” he continued. “I would not be opposed. I—”

Erik fancied he could see Charles’ pulse in his throat, rabbit-quick.

“If you were to offer,” Charles repeated. His fingers fluttered on the edge of his blanket. Erik could not drop his gaze.

 

In the pale light of the morning after, and the days to follow, things were not tense between them, but there was a _tension_. It felt like the air before a lightning storm. Erik couldn’t settle.

Clouds of frosted breath followed Charles as he moved around the workshop. Erik couldn’t stop looking at him. 

Everything had changed, and nothing had changed. Erik felt that his skin was too small.

 

It was only a matter of time until Erik's distraction came to a head. Everything was easier when you could pull the metal straight from the ore, but Erik didn't have the skill to bypass smelting entirely. The metal, pooling in the centre of the forge, bubbled and spat. A fleck, white-hot, flew at Erik's face.

Charles came bursting in from outside, his eyes wide, to see Erik swearing and grabbing at his neck.

"What happened?"

"An accident," Erik said, dismissively, flicking his free hand at Charles. "Don't," but Charles had already wet a rag. He was standing right inside Erik's personal space, like he belonged there, pressing the rag to the burn. Erik looked down at him. His eyes were very blue.

Charles looked up at him. His other hand moved from where it was holding Erik's shoulder to curl into the hair behind his ear, thumb resting against his jaw. "Erik," he breathed, and pressed their lips together.

It felt like he was burning, all over, sharp and hot. Charles moved away, and he heard himself make a helpless, broken sound, like he was being gutted, chasing Charles' mouth.

"Erik," Charles said, between kisses. "I — I can always feel you, at the edges, pushing—" He swept his tongue over Erik's bottom lip, seeking.

"Charles," Erik said, voice like a wounded animal, and wrapped his fingers in Charles' shirt, pulling him closer, pressing himself against him.

"You _fascinate_ me," Charles said.

 

Erik felt like he was drunk. His whole body was buzzing, like he was trying to leap out of his skin. Charles' hands swept over him, pushing him back inside, keeping him.

The cot was cold under his back, moved too far away from the fire to escape the seeping chill from the floor below, but Charles was like a brand above him, lying between his legs. His urgency pressed through his trousers, but his arousal was a distant awareness, like someone calling his name from far away or long ago. 

Charles was making these delicious noises, half moans and gasps that were almost his name, tongue and lips moving against Erik's own in a damp, smooth glide. The wet sounds of their kissing sounded almost sinful in Erik's ears, as did the sound that escaped from Charles when he slid his fingers under Charles' tunic, hands splayed wide over his ribs and spine.

"Erik," Charles said, and _rolled_ his hips into Erik's, bringing his own arousal back to the forefront of his mind like a hammer strike, lights dancing across his vision. 

"The things I want," Charles said.

Erik had never had a lot of imagination, but his mind was suddenly filled with thoughts that were not his own: Charles pushing into him, riding him, Erik on his knees with Charles' cock in his mouth. Erik could feel the weight of it on his tongue, and he had never wanted anything so much.

His hips stuttered and his back arched as he came, gasping. Charles dug his fingers into Erik skull with a sound of desperate arousal and fucked into Erik's pliant mouth with his tongue as he ground against him, sending sparks of over-sensitivity across Erik's vision. Erik whimpered, simultaneously chasing the sensations and backing away, too much. Charles gasped, groaned, pressed his forehead into Erik's.

"I can feel," he said, breathless, " _everything_ ," and Erik felt him twitch against him as he came.

 

It was spring. Piotr was looking at him over the charcoal pile, long and quiet. Erik raised an eyebrow.

"What," he said.

The serf shrugged. "You seem happy," he said. "I am glad."

Erik could feel Charles dancing around the back of his mind, amusement touching him briefly. He held Piotr's gaze, and didn't smile. Piotr understood.


End file.
